Watchdog needs to draw a line under Lehmans

The FSA’s action is not before time - it has been painfully slow to act on structured products

Just over a year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City regulator, has finally moved to help thousands of investors who had schemes backed by the American investment bank - many of them unwittingly.

Last week, two of the firms that offered so-called structured products backed by Lehmans - NDF Administration (NDFA) and Defined Returns Limited (DRL) - were placed into administration. The FSA pushed the firms down the administration route because it means investors can now claim back their money from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), rather than having to complain to the firms and then the Ombudsman - a fraught process many consumers abandon at the first hurdle.

The downside is that FSCS claims for investments are capped at £48,000, whereas the Ombudsman can go up to £100,000 - so some investors may not be covered in full. However, they could still lodge a claim against